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It was not the truth, and there was no way to connect the two and make it make sense. It was as if the hunt took them over, and all they could scent in their noses was the blood of the enemy. It was controlled. A strategy, even when all he seemed to want to do was break out of his hold and kill.

Mariano had my hand in his, almost a death grip, and we were walking toward the doors to leave. It was a regular walk, no rush, but I could almost hear his heart—racing toward it. He was able to balance the line between romantic and ruthlessness so smoothly, it was almost a phenomenon to watch.

“Should we take the back exit? Call for our cars? That’s Rat-at-Rattler.” Atta rushed her words out. “Let’s avoid them. So there’s no trouble?”

Angelo pulled her to the side, and although his eyes were dilated from anger, he leaned in and whispered something in her ear.

She closed her eyes, two tear drops gliding down her cheeks, full of mascara, but might have been the blood still leaking from that nightmare night.

It hurt my heart to see it, and more than Rattler and his brothers, brought me deeper into that night.

Angelo kissed her tears, keeping them for his own, probably using them to mark his heart where she had been hurt. He pulled her to his chest, kept her there for a few seconds, before Mariano nodded at him to keep walking. I assumed he wanted us all in a group. Safety in numbers.

Right before we reached the front exit, Mariano helped me into my black coat.

It had fake fur around the collar. A Fausti soldier, who I did not have a name for, opened the door, and Remo and about twelve more soldiers followed him.

When the line had thinned, a cold wind swept in and chilled me to the bone, even with the coat.

Atta reached from behind and grabbed my hand, squeezing once, her skin ice cold. Her jacket was thicker than mine.

Atta had been honest with Angelo about Rattler and his family, how dangerous they were, how they would bully families out of their homes.

She did not tell him about that night. Neither did I.

I did not want to break her trust. However, I knew there was more to what had happened.

She did not confide in me about that either.

I thought of it over the years. Not the night specifically, but why she did not want to tell me after. Allow me to carry some of her burden. I am a woman, I could understand this. I was a woman who was next to her on that straw floor filled with nightmares.

Her cousin.

Her blood.

The only conclusion I ever formed was that Rattler had threatened me as well. If Atta would have told me the truth, perhaps I would have gone back with a gun and shot him dead. Perhaps his brothers would have killed me, and I would not be standing where I was.

The soldiers created two walls on each side of us. Remo was in front of us. Marciano was behind us. One of Angelo’s brothers was behind Marciano. The other brothers were behind Angelo and Atta. There was no room for Rattler or his brothers to squeeze in.

At the curb was where we met them. It seemed as if the hole was purposely created. The Fausti soldiers must have been ordered to keep the Greens from the sides and behind, but not up front.

Mariano set me behind him as Remo stepped to the side.

Rattler and Mariano were face to face.

Angelo took a position beside Mariano, and so did Marciano. Rattler’s brothers flanked him on either side.

I made a tsking noise with my mouth.

Rattler and his band of thugs seemed like playthings to Mariano and his family.

After looking Mariano up and down, grinning, Rattler tilted to the right, trying to see past the wall in front of us.

What I did not notice before was the color of his face and the scent from his clothes.

It was not full of snake musk as it usually was, but the bitter tinge of ash.

His face seemed as if it was coated in torched charcoal.

“Hiding those two, huh? Is that what this is about?” Rattler said. “Two girls who lie about what’s been done to them, when they were both willing participants?”

Mariano said nothing.

His eyes never left Rattler.

The biggest mistake Rattler could have made.

He did not look into my husband’s eyes and see him for what he was.

A true hunter.

A killer.

The intensity coming from my husband almost made me take a step back.

It was pushing against me, as strong as the wind was.

If it was not for the men who had hurt me and Atta, I would have shivered out of fear.

I could even smell it in the air. It overpowered the bitterness Rattler and his brothers emitted.

Power.

My husband emitted power—a rich smell that did not cower to the bitter miasma Rattler and his brothers seemed to carry.

“Pussy might have your tongue tied in knots, but not mine,” Rattler said. “That one. Atta Watt. She?—”

I made a growling noise and forced myself past the men in front of me, Atta screaming my name, trying to grab me by the arm. Rattler went to take a step forward but thought better of it and took a step back. Mariano had taken me by the arm and held me close to his side.

“Speak for me,” my husband said in Italian, his voice low, but every word precise.

“Wait a damn minute!” the brother who had escorted me into the barn by the hair that night said, pulling out his phone. “He’s speaking a language we don’t understand. That’s not entirely fair.”

“This is why I will speak for him,” I said, narrowing my eyes against his.

“Told you she’s a witch,” he spoke from the side of his mouth to another brother.

“Yeah,” Rattler said, his eyes on mine, but they weren’t as narrowed as before. “The consequence for casting spells? Burning at the stake.”

The brother with the phone turned it forward. It was a translating app. He looked directly at me. “I don’t trust you to truthfully translate what he’s saying.”

Mariano had a firm hold on me, and I had never noticed him do this until then—he was shaking my hand, which seemed innocent to the outside world. I knew better. It was a sign he was using all his strength to hold back from charging them.

“You have committed crimes against my heart and the heart of my cousin,” Mariano spoke in Italian.

I translated.

“You speak of consequences. You will know what it means to face a judge and jury from a court you have never heard of. We follow our laws, and you will suffer the consequences of breaking our rules—crimes against our women are not merely business but personal. You will die a thousand deaths.”

When I spoke the last word, Atta made a strangled noise from behind me.

The brother with the phone had set it down. He was not interested in the translation any longer. He was staring at Rattler, fear in his eyes.

Mariano’s speech through my voice had unnerved him.

“It’s like he’s a ghost and she’s speaking for him,” one of the brothers said, not even bothering to whisper.

Rattler did not look so sure either. He was sweating in the cold, lines of ash or dirt streaking down his face.

Mariano’s hand jingled. “My heart warned you,” he continued. “She warned you that you would die for your crimes. I am her hunter. I hunt for her alone. Kill in her honor.”

My head whipped in my husband’s direction, and my eyes were hard on his face.

How did he know? How did he know I had threatened Rattler and his brothers that night? It was an empty threat then. It did not feel empty in that moment.

My husband’s eyes barely came to mine, but I understood immediately. He knew me. Knew me down to my soul.

If I did not translate for him, he knew I did not say such a thing that night, or it would make him a liar. A high offense in his world.

He trusted me enough to do this or not, his honor at stake.

I repeated his words as I looked at my husband, not Rattler.

Mariano nodded. “You should have heeded her warning.”

I translated.

As fast as a snake strike, Mariano let go of my hand, reached down into his boot, snatched the knife he kept strapped to his ankle, and slit the side of Rattler’s face open. From corner of mouth to upper cheek. He did the same to the brother who said he did not trust me to translate.

“ Ahhh !” The brother was screaming, holding the flaps of his face.

Rattler seemed to be in shock. He teetered on his feet, holding a hand to the gaping wound, his eyes as round as saucers. It was as if he could not believe someone had the nerve to strike him first.

“You disrespect mine.” Mariano pulled his bottom lip in, running his teeth over it. Then he rolled his shoulders. “You disrespect me .”

Ah , when Rattler called me a dead bitch, and the brother said he did not trust me to tell the truth. For Atta as well. When Rattler was about to point her out for something she did not do. He had done. He had done it all.

I gasped when Mariano hauled me up in his arms, stepping in their blood on the way to the waiting SUV. “Your boots were made to step in shit. I’ll fucking die before you step in their blood. That’s how fucking worthless it is to me.”

He gently set me down in the shotgun seat of the SUV.

Once in the driver’s seat, Mariano turned on the music of the car, nodding to it, urging me to find a song I liked.

He pressed down on the gas, and the SUV smoothly took off into the night.

He held my hand as he usually did. He kissed it and breathed me in over my wrist, where my pulse throbbed.

It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, except I knew.

His thumb tapped against the steering wheel; my hand jingled in his every so often.

The night was not over.

The scariest idea of all?

This situation was mild compared to the one we faced in Italy.